


Power Outage

by toxicdotaep (RacheTanz)



Category: John Dies at the End - David Wong
Genre: OT3 Rights because i said so, Other, by gays for gays, i think this half-dead tag needs more fluff nonsense and i am here to Provide, im just havin fun and invite y'all along for the ride, just some Absolute Nonsense, or maybe it's john's house or something idrc y'all imagine whatever ya like, they have a house they share, v fluffy, when does this take place re:canon? i have 0 clue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23818687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RacheTanz/pseuds/toxicdotaep
Summary: The power goes out, so the gang plays Uno by candlelight and then takes a nap. There's not a ton of plot to this one, just some nonsense.I haven't ever written for these 3 before, so I'm sorry if any of this is out of character !
Relationships: John Cheese/Amy Sullivan/David Wong
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Power Outage

**Author's Note:**

> terrible title, i know. also only rated "Teen and Up" because of all the swearing the duo do. You Know.  
> hope y'all enjoy

When Dave got home, the house was dark and the lightswitch didn’t work. “Hello?” He called into their home as he shut the door behind him, stomping snow off his boots. 

“Dave!” A duet yelled back, and he heard footsteps thumping towards him. Usually, it’s charming, but that’s when he can actually see. He did his best to brace himself.

“The fuck’s with th— _oof-augh!_ —the fuck’s with the lights?” He asked, only interrupted when John and Amy plowed into him for a hug. 

“The power’s out,” John answered. 

“Some idiot smacked into a pole or something and then like five others fell over too. It’s been out for, I don’t know, half an hour already?” Amy added. Dave’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light enough to see John nod. “We’ve just been sitting in a circle of candles. It’s kinda romantic.”

“Or Satanic.”

“Great,” Dave pulled off his scarf. “Count me in.”

They helped him out of his jacket—not like he needed help, but they clearly missed him, which was nice—then dragged him to the living room where, indeed, there was a circle of candles around the edge of the coffee table, with a few on the floor. He’d ask how they got so many of the damn things, but he knew Amy’s always liked them, and John’s always been one to use them to cover up the smell of weed, so it really only made sense that gathering all of their candles in one spot would amount to a small shrine’s worth. “Hey, now we can play Uno without wanting to kill each other!” John sounded way too enthused for Dave’s liking, but he had a point; Dave’s measured apathy was needed to keep the two competitive gamers from getting a little bit _too_ into it. He served as a good buffer. Plus, John cited him as his comedic muse, after all. If John was focused on cracking the other two up, he was less likely to get too invested in winning Uno. 

“Sure, but I’m not sitting on the floor.” Dave said, sitting down on the couch to emphasize that point. 

“Me neither. I don’t really want my back to mess itself up again.” Amy settled in next to him.

“Fine by me! I’ll go find the deck.” John wandered off, and Amy leaned on Dave. 

“How was your day?” She asked. 

“Exhausting. Shitty. But it’s all good now.” He looped an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “Missed you two.” 

She snuggled into him. “We missed you too.” 

Since John had gotten laid-off from yet another job and Amy was taking time off to sort out if she was up for another semester of college, they’d gotten some good bonding-time together, but that was their chief complaint about it: they missed Dave. It was pretty nice to feel wanted, but he hoped when things settled back into a routine they wouldn’t be as bothered. Dave worked the latest shifts of them (barring that time John had night shifts, which they all decided kinda sucked, as it ended up drastically cutting down on how much time they could spend together) and that often left them behind. 

“I _think_ there’s a full deck here,” John re-entered the room, a deck-or-so of cards in hand, shuffling them clumsily. “If not we can just, I don’t know, pretend there is.” He settled down on the floor, mindful of the candles, and shuffled them properly on the coffee table. For a moment Dave considered asking him to join them on the couch for a cuddle but that would make it difficult to keep the little shit from peeking at his cards. Amy had too much integrity for that, but John would consider it a failing on Dave’s part to not have hidden the cards, or something. He’d never been the most reasonable person but it often came off as a charming quirk. 

“Try not to catch the cards on fire,” Dave remarked as John started to deal out the cards, hands dangerously close to some of the flames. He’d swear John just can’t feel heat. 

“No promises!” John grinned at him.

“Who goes first?” Amy picked up her cards and shifted them around until she could read all of them, scooting away from Dave a little. 

“Well, ladies first, of course.” John picked up his cards as well. “Then we’ll go clockwise.” It was a routine they always followed; the script rarely if ever changed. Listening to John and Amy banter back and forth could be fun.

Amy rolled her eyes. “If you insist.” Dave examined his cards, squinting a little. Even with the candles, it was pretty damn dark in here.

“Hey, no fair, don’t start off with a draw-two like that, after I was so nice!” 

“This is Uno, it’s not about being nice.” 

“Well, if you wanna play it _that_ way.”

Dave didn’t often participate in their banter, preferring to just chip in with clumsy “witty” one-liners and jokes. He’d rather just let them play off each other, anyways, until the jokes got too vulgar, as was prone to happen between John “I can’t _not_ talk about my dick” Cheese and Amy “I can and _will_ say anything that comes into my head” Sullivan. Dave had a pretty high tolerance for that, but it was nothing compared to either of them. And they were _competitive_. It was cute to watch with something innocent like Mario Kart or one of those first-person shooters they both liked and Dave could never get into, but sometimes it got a little nauseating in this particular field. 

He was already losing by the third round. “There isn’t any fuckin' blue in the deck.” He grumbled, drawing card after card.

“Sure there is. It’s just wayyyyy at the bottom.” Amy snickered.

“Keep going, you’ll find it.” 

Dave huffed. “You two are hoarding all of it.”

“That’s right, except for what John has!”

John looked at his cards for a moment, “I have _maybe_ ten cards—”

“Having trouble counting?”

“Shut up.” 

“Try using your fingers, if it gives you trouble.” Dave finally found a blue, and the game could move on again. 

“Oh, sure. I’ve got one right here already.” John held up his middle finger, and Amy laughed. Dave couldn’t help but crack a smile; John was grinning, too. 

“Good start.” 

“Go ahead and find some more blue,” Amy played a skip, and Dave glared at her. 

“I love you, but you’re trying my patience.” 

She laughed at him as he kept drawing cards until turning over a blue three cards down.

There was a pause. “That’s green, not blue. Are you colourblind?” John laughed, and Dave squinted at the card, baffled. It _looked_ blue in the low light, but now that he squinted… “What colour are my eyes?” 

“You’re not tricking me into another staring contest.” Dave put the incorrect card back in his hand, then picked up and carefully examined a different card before determining it was, indeed, blue. “I know you have blue eyes and Amy has green eyes,” he huffed, playing the proper card.

Amy giggled. “Are you sure?”

“Aw, fuck off,” he laughed.

“Maybe you should check again!” She prompted, so he turned and stared at her, deadpan, for just enough time to be uncomfortable before whirling to do the same to John. They were both still snickering at him the whole time, of course. 

“Nope. Pretty sure I’m right.” 

“Well, that just killed whatever romantic air there might have been.” John joked, still staring directly into Dave’s eyes. 

“...Goddamnit, you’ve got me in a staring contest.” 

“I do. I always win, Dave.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.” 

Amy waved her arm between them, startling both of them. “Can we get back to cards, guys? I played an eight.” 

“Aw, but who won that one?” John demanded. 

“Let’s just say Dave did. He needs a win.” 

“I don’t want a _pity-win_. It’s obviously a tie, since you interrupted.” It was only logical, to Dave anyways. “It’s your turn, shitbird, play some blue. Or change it. _Please_ change it.” 

“Well now I am not going to,” John started drawing cards. “You and I both will have to die from blue.” 

“You won’t find any in the deck, I’ve got all of it over here, other than what we played.” Amy responded almost smugly. 

“You know the point is to _not_ have cards, right?” Dave raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re doing pretty poorly in that regard.”

“You’ll see! I’ve got a strategy.”

“Does Uno even _have_ strategies?” John furrowed his brow, as if genuinely trying to come up with one on the spot. 

“Yes. I’m not going to tell you mine. Get your own.” 

“Aw.” John finally found a blue seven. “Yeah-hah, it’s lookin’ up, finally.”

“Twenty cards later,” Dave pointed out.

“Shut up, dickwad.” 

The other two snickered at him at that. 

* * *

Amy ended up winning first, leaving Dave and John to battle it out for second place, with Amy taking advantage of the opportunity to snuggle up to him, both her arms around one of his, head on his shoulder. John only got a few quips in about being jealous before Amy decided a few minutes on the floor wouldn’t kill her, and did the same to John, though he was tall enough that she couldn’t easily put her head on his shoulder, and just squished one cheek into his bicep. It was adorable, Dave had to admit. She came right back after he won second place, all too eager to start another game.

As time wore on Dave got more and more tired. He tried to hide it, of course, like he always did, but eventually he couldn’t stifle the yawns anymore and he was pretty obviously playing _terribly_ (which the other two teased him for). He toughed it out for another half-hour before, at the end of another game, announcing he was going to take a nap. If the other two were disappointed at all, they didn’t show it, and he was able to walk to the bedroom and flop down unhindered. He wasn’t expecting to actually be able to fall asleep, but after a few minutes of blinking at the ceiling, he was snoring away peacefully for once in his life.

* * *

Dave awoke to a weight draped across him like a security blanket, but a lot bonier. He opened his eyes and glanced down to see the top of John’s head, and as he moved his head a little to get a proper look he felt one of John’s hands cupped loosely around the side of his neck; the other had burrowed under him in half a hug. Somehow, he’d been able to slither in without waking Dave up despite snaking that arm beneath Dave’s, between his bicep and his side. 

This was far from unusual, though. Ever since John, Dave and Amy had started doing… well, whatever this was—how that happened was entirely another mess—living together was the simplest way to put it, Dave decided—John had taken to using Dave as a cushion. After Dave started letting him, anyways. Instead of taking up one of the other two-thirds of the bed, John had decided he had to be right on top of Dave, leeching off his body heat, like a goddamned cat. At least his hands weren’t cold, though that also probably meant he’d been there for a while already. 

He snored. It sounded like a malfunctioning lawnmower being dragged over gravel and Dave tried not to snicker, wary about the movement waking him up. John was a helluva light sleeper, after all. Instead he cautiously lifted one hand and started carding his fingers through John’s hair. Its greasiness didn’t bother him these days, given he was entirely sure his own hair was ten times worse. He gently scratched at John’s scalp, a bit behind his ear, and was rewarded with John tightening his grip in his sleep, trying to pull Dave closer, as if he was a teddy bear. 

“You’re already _on top of me_ , jackass,” Dave whispered, “you can’t get any fuckin’ closer.” 

John snored again. Dave leaned forward slightly, carefully, to gently press his lips against the crown of John’s head for a moment. His scalp was all sweaty and smelled faintly of nicotine and a hair product John probably used instead of showering. 

Dave wasn’t tired anymore, but he didn’t really feel like moving, either. Entirely content to just lie there for a while, continuing to pet John like a long-haired dog. He wasn’t sure how long, exactly, he kept doing that, but eventually the bedroom door creaked open and he glanced over to see Amy tiptoeing in. 

“Hey,” she whispered, carefully crawling in beside him.

“Hey,” he answered. “What time is it?” 

“Like three, four in the morning?” She shrugged. “Sorry, I hadn’t checked the clock. The power’s still out, by the way, but I think the heat will be fine, for now.” 

He nodded. If push came to shove they could always use the fireplace for once. The focus shifted back to John when he snored again, though quieter and less grating than before.

“He’s sleeping like a rock.” Amy observed, reaching over to gently ruffle through his hair herself.

“Must be coming down off something.” 

John’s mouth twitched a little, like he was trying not to smile. He put forth a valiant effort of pretending to be asleep but Amy caught him out. “You’re awake, aren’t you!”

“No,” John answered, opening his eyes and grinning. 

“You sneaky little bastard, how long were you pretending?” 

“I woke up when the door squeaked. Can’t a guy just appreciate the love he’s getting for a minute?” 

Amy laughed out an “of course” at the same time Dave flatly said “No.” 

“You love me and you know it, Dave,” John teased, moving the hand on Dave’s neck over to scratch his stubble. He was right, but Dave wasn’t about to admit it, not without being prompted. His smile did give him away, though, and all three of them knew it. Still, John felt like being a little shit, so he leaned up, pressing his chin to Dave’s. “You do love me, don’t you, David-dear?” 

“Of course I love you, asshole, now knock it off.” Dave snickered. John snuck a kiss before doing as he’d been asked, settling back in. Dave rolled his eyes at Amy and she giggled before sidling closer to him. He looped his free arm around her as she pressed into his side, effectively trapping him. Even if he’d wanted to get up, he definitely couldn’t now. He wrapped his arm around her as best he could; some part of him had hoped he’d be able to hold both Amy and John at the same time, but he just couldn't quite make it. His fingers barely brushed John’s side, so he poked John twice to let him know that was the best he was gonna get. Given Dave’s other hand was buried in his hair, John was getting enough attention. He seemed to think so, too, as he shut his eyes, resting his head on Dave’s collarbones again. Amy reached up and tossed one arm over John, who grinned, dragging his hand off Dave’s face to hug her back. 

“You ever notice how we only use, I don’t know, half of our bed? Because you two can’t _not_ be literally on top of me?” Dave pointed out. 

Amy nuzzled into his shoulder. “In our defense, it’s winter.” 

“And you’re like a fuckin’ furnace.”

Dave really couldn’t argue with that. He was pretty hot-natured, and John in particular always seemed to enjoy that fact. Hell, even before they’d talked over being more than friends John had a tendency to ask Dave to warm up his hands during winter, which was basically just extremely-no-homo-code for “Please hold my hands, Dave. My terrible, terrible, icy, bony hands.” Dave couldn’t remember when he stopped pretending it was an inconvenience—was it before or after all of this? At some point John was accustomed to just shoving his cold, red-knuckled hands at Dave, and Dave taking them in his own to heat them up again. Or tucking them under an arm, if he needed his own hands free. John didn’t complain, regardless. 

John was snoring again in no time, this time joined by the much softer sound of Amy snoring, too. Two people snoring, in stereo where available. Dave stared at the ceiling, eyes half-shut, not tired enough to sleep but not awake enough to want to get up. Drowsy. He tilted his head to one side to kiss the crown of Amy’s head, pausing for a moment to appreciate the smell of her shampoo before letting his head roll back on the pillow. Maybe he’d sleep again, or maybe he’d zone out until they woke up, but either way, he felt an odd zen settle over him. Content. Safe. Things were alright, if only for a little while. Maybe in two hours he’d be woken by the sound of the world threatening to fall the fuck apart all around him, **_again_** , but in this one moment, things were just fine. 

He didn’t even feel his eyelids sliding shut again.


End file.
